Mortgages: Government Assistance

Gordon Henderson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether his Department has made an estimate of the  (a) number and  (b) monetary value of excess payments made under the Support for Mortgage Interest scheme.

Steve Webb: At the current Standard Interest Rate of 6.08%, the Department for Work and Pensions has estimated from a small sample of data that 92% (207,000) of the 225,000 customers who received Support for Mortgage Interest in November 2009 will receive awards in excess of their eligible mortgage interest outgoings.
	The Department's systems do not hold information on the actual rate of interest hat Support for Mortgage Interest customers pay, so no estimate of the monetary value of excess payments is available.

Social Rented Housing: Standards

John Healey: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what his Department's planned budget for the Decent Homes programme was at the start of the 2010-11 financial year; and whether that budget has been changed since 6 May 2010.

Andrew Stunell: At the start of 2010-11 the Decent Homes budget was £848 million, covering the arm's length management organisation programme: local authority supported capital expenditure; and gap funding arrangements that support some housing transfer schemes. No decisions to change this budget have been taken since 6 May. These figures would have been lower had funding reductions of £150 million not been made to the Decent Housing programme in July 2009.